Today is a perfect example of what is wrong with the media in this country. Today when Trump

tweeted out that 3000 people did not perish in Puerto Rico, and this was all a Democratic attempt to make him look bad, for the most part they leave it at that. It is as though this is a debatable point. IT ISN'T A DEBATABLE POINT, and the media DOES have a responsibility to make that clear. This is the kind of reporting they have been doing for some time now.

When Chuck Todd said in 2013 that it's not the media's job to correct the GOP's falsehoods on "Obamacare", that spelled out problem the problem loud and clear.

It is the responsibility of the media to separate fact from fiction. Is it any surprise that when trump calls most of the media fake news, and "the enemy of the people", they still continue to spew his blatant lies out without correcting things at the time.

Yes, during their "talk show panels", it is brought up, but that is too late. You need to do it when you are reporting it as news, and you know it is false.

In fact during those "talk show panels", they always present an opposing side, which again brings it into the realm of debatable.

1. This. Fucking pisses me off to no end ... (nt)

2. NBC got it right, for once

BREAKING: Pres. Trump rejects independent study that reports an estimated 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico in 5 months after Hurricane Maria; provides no evidence to discount the study; declares, without evidence, that the higher death toll is political ploy to make him look bad.

40. the thing is, compared to what? limbaugh explained trump is correct to 15million people

this morning. and a few hundred other lying asssholes on 1500 radio stations follow his lead all day and week and that's the buzz in much of the rural "US.

like with all this alternate reality, liberals who ignore talk radio and live in cities always forget/ignore that factor. so even if the 'liberal media' may get it right much of the base is going to stay with him on that and global warming and russian collusion. slowly the secondary recipients of that buzz will come around and the polls seem to show it but until the lefts orgs stop ignoring talk radio so the msm starts to cover it better and the dem party starts to factor it in we're still fucked.

11. I don't expect anything from the MSM.

Quite simply, it's a very profitable entertainment business with all corporate sponsers who pay the bills. The hairdos nake megabucks for being what they are and aren't going to changeBeing very wealthy they all got enough to buy a yacht from the last GOP tax cut. If you really want to change the media simply kill their ratings by turning them off. If Toad loses a million viewers he is toast. We need to quit feeding the beast.

21. Yep, so true!

Maybe you're aware that Al Franken tried to do this about 13/14 years ago. Before he ran for the Senate he was part of a liberal group of media people who were taking on Fox News and the right-wing radio haters (Rush Limbaugh and that crowd.) It was a hard thing to start-up and it was even harder to find sponsors and advertisers. The network eventually folded after a few years.

If you ever get a chance google Air America Radio, or look for the documentary video called "Left of the Dial." It might be available at your local library, or maybe it's been posted on YouTube. (?)

16. There was never enough pushback against the "liberal media" narrative. That has cost us dearly.

As I've written more than once, in addition to false equivalencies, there's a tendency to treat all statements as equally valid opinions. No facts, no lies, just opinions.

The media goes out of its way to placate. Concentration in the hands of just a few giant corporations is part of the problem, but I think decades of "liberal media" rhetoric has taken a toll. Too many members of the media have a twisted sense of what constitutes fair reporting.

26. On CNN's home page, they say it's a false claim (by Trump)

28. CNN has been calling him out on this

all morning, at least what I have heard this morning. Even listening in the car I heard John King say some truth about Trump and his lies. Not just the panels either they have been talking about it from the begining early this morning. There are times I wonder about Alisyn Camerota, I have felt like she brought some baggage from Fox but lately she has been angry and very much in the corner of the Democrats trying to stop some of this. This morning she was very angry over the Trump tweet. It was almost hard to look at her, like she was shooting eye arrows at the screen. I don't know, I watch for news and not really for partisanship but even so it seems to me that there are a lot of left turns being made or solidified.

29. NPR quoted him, prefacing it with:

31. I subscribe to the Washington Post, and a front page story in today's paper said the following:

Headline: Trump rebuked after questioning number of deaths attributed to Hurricane Maria
"President Trump falsely said that a high death count had been generated by Democrats to “make me look as bad as possible.” A George Washington University study estimated there were 2,975 “excess deaths” in the six months after Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico last September."

Please be selective in where you get your news and don't cast blanket statements about the media unless you've done some homework. I always check the Post, the NYT, and NPR's reporting first.

The NYTHeadline: Rejecting Puerto Rican Death Toll, Trump Accuses Democrats of Inflating It
"President Trump on Thursday falsely accused Democrats of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, rejecting that government’s assessment that the storm had claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Mr. Trump stated that the toll was only six to 18 dead after his visit following the storm and said Democrats padded the death toll by including, for example, a person who died of old age “in order to make me look as bad as possible.”

NPRHeadline: Trump Rejects Death Toll In Puerto Rico
"Public health officials say almost 3,000 died in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. President Trump has questioned that figure. Journalist Adriana De Jesus Salaman offers perspective. Just as American prepare for a hurricane, president Trump has a conspiracy theory about an earlier storm.

Another Heasdline: Trump Denies Almost 3,000 Died In Puerto Rico, Falsely Claims Democrats Inflated Data:
"A study conducted by The Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, determined the death toll at 2,975, a figure accepted by Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, and far beyond the previous official count of 64. FEMA administrator Brock Long wrote in a letter to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that there have been 2,431 applications for funeral assistance from Puerto Rico, as of July 30. Just 75 have been approved by the Trump administration so far because of eligibility questions."

43. Thank you.

As I pointed out below, newspapers always add the facts in AP or Rueters articles. The problem is people no longer want to soil their fingers with printer's ink. They want to watch cable news and hear Andrea Mitchell sternly call people liars to their face like a WWE interview. In that realm, reporters report, and pundits parse.

Cable news reporters are only there to get the statements. They don't have time to continually go to commercial breaks while the staff gathers facts to debate during an interview.

33. Iraq

We went thru this with Iraq War civilian death counts. There are often grounds for disputing these
calculations, and different methods will give different results - but by any reckoning the numbers
were vastly higher than our government's rosy scenario reports. Mr Trump has nothing to back
up his estimate, just his own hurricane of BS and the bully pulpit he's standing at.

36. Are they news/information organizations or are they new/business organizations?

The former reports well-documented information. The latter reports items that fit the political biases of their audience. The Trump tweet fits the bias of their conservative/Trump viewers but is in contradiction to well-documented information.

38. This reminds me of a great point that I think Rachel Maddow made, when she was first

starting to gain media prominence.

Her comment about this was about the folly of "both sides!both sides!"/"but in fairness..."/fair and "balanced!" attempt to present opposing views to prove you're not partisan, yourself. Sometimes there is NO opposing view. Sometimes there's NO REASON to acknowledge a different opinion. And she gave the example of a report from, say, NASA or something, in which we must include a representative from the Flat Earth Society to give equal time to all arguments. NO!!! There's no reason in all of Heaven to bring in somebody from the fucking Flat Earth Society to dispute something from recognized space science!

I've always appreciated that particular metaphor. It does get the point across. Alex Jones comes to mind...

39. I read an article somewhere--NYTimes or Wapo--that said the panel shows

41. There is a difference between reporting and talk shows with opinions, and editorials.

Reporting is NOT to parse half truths, ferret out whole or partial truths. They report. Reporting is what, when, where, who, and sometimes how & why.

Example of how a reporter might report Trump's statement:

President Trump today tweeted that 3,000 Puerto Ricans did not die as a result of the two hurricanes, and that that is just what he calls "fake news" by the Democrats to help them in the mid-term elections. Democratic Minority Leader in the Senate, Schumer, when asked for comment, stated, "That's ridiculous. Once again, he's trying to cover up and distract from his failure to handle an event by claiming the facts aren't true, and even if they are, it's someone else's fault."

As we've reported before, Puerto Rico's Dept. of (whatever) reports that 3,000 people have died as a result of the two hurricanes that hit the island in 2017.

That's an appropriate report. I don't want opinion in raw reporting of facts and statements. That's when you get into mushy territory. Because if the reporter says "that's a lie" when Trump says something, then another reporter can say "that's a lie" when Schumer says something. That's not what reporting is for.

It's the job of political commentators and talk show hosts to get into the nitty gritty. And editorials in newspapers and opinion articles in CNN.com, and Factchecker.org and Politifact.org, Politico, DailyBeast, and all the other opinion sources of information. The NYT and Washington Post do a lot of opinion research articles. Those are not raw reporting articles. They are the result of tips, leaks, and investigations, that a reporter puts together.

It's not true that the media doesn't cover Trump's lies as lies. It's well covered. There are so many lies that the media can't cover every single one. Chris Matthews called it Trump's ridiculous crazy statement last night. I think it was also covered on other political talk shows. It was well covered, for what it was. I think you may think the statement was more important than it was. Almost no one takes anything he says as truth, anymore. It was yet another shocking statement that denigrated brown people and Democrats. But it wasn't a big story. He's been lying in a lot of tweets daily here lately. They're just not that big a deal, any more, sorry to say.

42. Reporters report, pundits discuss.

Having said that, whenever there's an AP or Rueters item like this in the newspaper there's always a clarification of the facts somewhere in the article.

The problem is no one reads newspapers anymore. They're satisfied with cable news or (sigh) the internet where they handle the reporting, then spin the punditry separately. NBC interviews would cease if Andrea Mitchell or Chuck Todd kept interrupting to call people fucking liars. Then they would have to take a commercial break to Google the facts and present them in real time. I know I'd quit watching after the first chaotic segment.

44. Although I am no fan of Rick Scott,

I must give him credit. He refuted trmp's BS denial, saying that he had been to the island 6 or 7 times and had seen the devastation (and death) first hand. He went on to say that people were slowly getting back on their feet after all of the neglect (by the federal government). He was promptly savaged by the GOP and no small number of Floridians. But at least he spoke up.

57. I remember Iniki.

Lots of damage. But thankfully, very little loss of life.

That was also the year Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida, which I think is one reason why Rick Scott had to be honest about the devastation on PR. Andrew destroyed Homestead and it never really recovered.

46. When any person has control of the Bully Pulpit....

such as our American POTUS, he or she should treat that as a sacred honor and insure everything that's broadcast globally is truthful and insure it does not induce false or excessive fear, and insure its content is free of racism, sexism or bigotry.

Trump has violated that unwritten rule of decency virtually every day since his inauguration (not even mentioning the campaign) and I believe it is the responsibility of our media and other platforms to clearly call out his lies and deceptions. They are breaking our trust by not doing so.

Using reasoning and fairness, we could tell the networks that in the future we will assume their advertisers are lying to us because they are operating a platform that condones lying every day.